Firsts and lasts

I always heard moms talk about their school aged kids. School aged! My god they seemed so old.

Until today when I watched my 6 month old and his 3 year old sister get on a bus for school.

No, I swear. Isn’t he still 6 months old? Isn’t she still the feisty three year old that coined the term, “You think two was terrible, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The thing is: You all think the same thing, don’t you. I know I do when I see your children climbing on to busses. “Wasn’t he just a preemie? Wasn’t her mom just pregnant with her? OHMYGOD where has the time gone?’

This is an occupational hazard of blogging for 7, no, NINE years? What the hell, people. Did we even have blogs in 2003? Oh, yes we did mothercrackers. We did.

Anyway, my needless reminiscing aside, you’ve been here through the pregnancy of my first, the postpartum depression, the miscarriages, the early birth of the second, the NICU, and the pleasantly dull but life-altering years after. And now? Now they are, what did you call it? School aged. Yes. That.

Holyshit.

*She thought he was just another one of her dolls *

*I think just after this picture she pinched his nose to make sure he was still breathing. Or some other reason that I can’t remember that probably had to do with nothing about noses at all. *

*Of course I did.*

*The Bigger One starting pre-school. Just the first in a long line of “holycrap my baby is going to [fill in year here]” *

*Another shot of the two of them shortly before one of them began screaming for something or other. I forget. *

*This is what I saw looking out of the bus window at me. THIS KID. Gah. *

*Gravity is so last year. Incidentally, we do this a lot to our children. Apparently. *

*LB goes to Kindergarten. Gah. Gah. *

*LB goes to first and O goes to preschool. Tripple Gah.*

*Watching his sister get on the bus he asks, “do they have seatbelts?” He’s quite concerned about this.*

*portrait of a second-grader *

*WHO THE HELL ARE THESE CHILDREN?! See also: holycrap. See also: GAH GAH GAHHHH. See also: Kindergarten and Third. THIRD PEOPLE.*

I didn’t cry once, not a single tear, until the bus driver turned to me after my baby got on the bus and turns to be through the window with a thumbs up, “We got him.”

And then I bawled. Choking-type cries. The type that comes from the toes of your heart. The kind that you’d mock if it was anyone else but you.

So they went to school together. In the careful care of his older sister, my children took their first real step away from home today in a most literal and figurative sense. I saw my baby get on the bus with his sister, and the memories of photos and time and snapshots of life flashed before me. Didn’t we just bring them home a few days ago? I’m so cliche it hurts.